


fraternize

by aghhhhhh



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 14:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19994047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghhhhhh/pseuds/aghhhhhh
Summary: aziraphale and crowley throughout the ages. mostly just aziraphale stressing.





	fraternize

Aziraphale had gone far longer without seeing Crowley, of course. Twenty years was practically nothing to them. In the beginning he’d been... lucky if he saw Crowley more than once every few centuries. 

But this was different. He’d gotten used to seeing Crowley at least every few years. To knowing vaguely what Crowley was up to, either through Crowley or chatter on the streets. But for twenty years, there’d been dead silence. Nobody knew anything, and by now all the humans had forgotten Crowley or presumed him dead. 

Aziraphale knew Crowley wasn’t dead. Sometimes, after drinking wine, he’d perform a miracle to check. Nothing more, just making sure Crowley was alive and safe. He always had been fine. Avoiding Aziraphale, but fine. 

The last time - well, second to last time, but the real last time was something Aziraphale didn’t like to think about - he’d seen Crowley, they’d kissed. They’d both been some level of drunk, sitting in Crowley’s flat, and Aziraphale had been overcome with a sudden madness and leaned over and kissed him. Crowley had kissed him back. It had been extremely gratifying. Not a madness, under the surface, but something that had haunted his thoughts for Almighty knows how long. 

Kissing Crowley was glorious. He’d wondered why he’d never tried it before, but most of his focus was caught up in the moment. They kissed and kissed and kissed, hands going in hair and bodies pressing together. He was an angel and Crowley a demon, but just then, for those brief minutes, it didn’t matter.

Crowley’s doorbell had rung, and reality had crashed back in. Aziraphale had practically flung himself across the couch. It was bad. He’d heard Hastur’s voice at the door, saying he was coming in. It was worse. 

“Fuck,” Crowley had said, and before Aziraphale could have done anything, snapped his fingers and miracled - well, the demonic version - Aziraphale back to the bookshop. Aziraphale spent the night, the following three days, and the morning before their final meeting pacing. Stress-reading. Drinking. He didn’t have a phone and he didn’t know Crowley’s phone number - neither real obstacles in contacting Crowley, but passable excuses. 

The third day, he sent his monthly report to Heaven. Gabriel sent it back, with an aggressively yellow note reminding him to “destroy the opposition, not your meals :)”. Aziraphale stuck it in the pile of passive-aggressive notes and didn’t attempt to speak to Crowley. 

On the fourth day, a message. Saint James Park. He’d gone, not sure what to expect from Crowley. Not sure what he wanted from Crowley. Not what he got. Another note from Gabriel would have been preferable to a request for a suicide pill. Instead, he had fought with Crowley, calling their relationship “fraternizing”, like it was some unfathomable sin. It was, but it’d never felt like sinning. Aziraphale, even as he’d said the word “fraternizing,” hadn’t been sure if he was talking about the kissing or the friendship and he definitely wasn’t sure which Crowley had been referring to when he said he had other people to “fraternize with”. 

Aziraphale had stalked off, and that had been that. 

Who else was Crowley fraternizing with? Didn’t matter, that had been very clear. Even clearer with the radio silence. They - they weren’t really a they, weren’t they - were done. Aziraphale could go fraternize with whoever he liked. He hadn’t, but he could. He hadn’t. 

Sometimes when he slept, he dreamed of Crowley. Laughing. Them kissing. Crowley smirking. More kissing. Crowley’s laugh. Aziraphale was soft. Soft. Pining over someone who, last time they’d met, he had walked away from. Walked away from in his time of need. He tried not to think about it. 

***

Twenty seven years. 

An elegantly dressed gentleman visited the bookstore. Aziraphale successfully did not sell him a book. He was snippy about it - he’d been snippy for 27 years. His relationship with Gabriel was better than ever. The gentleman came back anyways, and invited him to a discrete gentlemen’s club. Those were the exact words. 

Aziraphale probably shouldn’t have gone. He was perfectly aware of what kind of discrete club this was. He was perfectly aware he wasn’t supposed to be fraternizing with humans. Befriending them, dancing with them, kissing them. Learning to dance.

He went. He learned the gavotte and kissed all sorts of men and discovered he only enjoyed one of those. The gavotte. Kissing was perfectly lovely, and all the men were beautiful and fascinating, but none were Crowley. It wasn’t the same. He declined all invitations to do anything more than the casual gavotte kiss. He kept thinking about Crowley. 

He’d worked up the courage to causally - he hoped - ask Micheal about Crowley. Citing a concern that he hadn’t been seen around for a while, and he might be up to no good. More no good than usual. He needed to stay informed, to keep on top of thwarting Crowley’s evil wiles. Micheal knew nothing. Aziraphale was both disappointed and relieved. 

After six years of dancing, one of the elegant gentlemen, a blonde, asked Aziraphale why he rejected all their advances. There had been multiple. It was a discrete club, after all. 

“There’s… someone else.” he’d said. “It’s quite complicated.” Understatement or overstatement, he wasn’t sure. They fought and hadn’t talked in years. Also, they were immortals and predestined enemies. It was simple, if you ignored all the mildly impossible portions.

“Ah,” the man said sympathetically. “What’s his name?”

“Crowley.” 

It was a relief to say it out loud, but for months Aziraphale walked on eggshells, fearing that Gabriel would appear and drag him back to Heaven for punishment. He left the club, citing personal reasons. Closed the bookshop and went on holiday. A long holiday. Nearly twenty years. He had so much food to catch up on. Books to collect. Nearly sunk on the Titanic, but got distracted by first oysters and second Gabriel, and missed his boarding. Bought a new coat in France - dressing aristocratically was finally back in style - and had crepes at the same place he and Crowley had gone a century earlier. He’d gotten horribly drunk that night in his room at the hotel, missing him. 

What in the Heavens was Crowley doing? 

He returned to London, glad to have his bookshop back. Few remembered him. War was brewing, and the discrete club had disbanded. A mysteriously unchanged shopkeeper back after twenty years went unnoticed. It was a bit of a miracle, really. 

The day he’d gotten back, he’d once again performed the miracle confirming that Crowley was alive and safe. He was. Thank the Almighty. 

***

It was something out of an action flick, almost. 

There was Aziraphale in a church, gun to his head after a sudden betrayal. Later, he’d realize that he’d should have seen it coming.

There was Crowley. Sauntering into the church - well actually hopping as saunter-y as he could manage - to rescue Aziraphake after nearly a century of silence. 

There was a bomb, the Nazis dying and our heroes miraculously surviving. 

There was the heroes falling in love. Well, not quite.

As Aziraphale stood in the ruins of the church, holding the satchel of books, he realized he was already in love. With Crowley. Not the love he had for his bookshop or food, or the love of Heaven - distant, sterile - but something larger, warmer, less comprehensible. It was - at the discreet club, there’d been a couple who’d been together for years. Aziraphale could sense love, and their’s was fierce yet tender, a campfire in the darkness. It was a little like that, possibly - bright and warm and everything. 

He’d never felt this. 

That night, after Crowley dropped him off at the bookshop, Aziraphale would realize how impossible it was. They were an angel and a demon. Hereditary enemies. Crowley didn’t even like him that way. Crowley had asked for a suicide pill and they hadn’t talked about it and nothing was right. He’d resolved to do nothing. Say nothing. Feel nothing. 

But in the car, he’d been caught up in relief and joy and the giddiness of being alive and seeing Crowley and love. 

“Been up to no good lately?” he’d asked. Causally. 

“I was napping. Woke up a few months ago.”

“Oh!” Oh. “I will have to treat you to dinner sometime soon. You’ve missed so much good food, and I must thank you for tonight.”

Crowley nearly hit a lamppost. “Yes. Sounds good. Excellent.” 

Aziraphale turned to smile at him, but Crowley was staring at the road. Possibly a good thing - he was afraid Crowley didn’t actually know how to drive. He’d been asleep for so long. Perhaps the hat was to hide a century’s worth of bedhead. 

They’d arrived at the bookshop intact, a moderate relief. Aziraphale got out of the car. Crowley rolled down his window. 

“I’m going to assume you don’t know how to drive. Shall I pick you up sometime this week for dinner?”

“That would be lovely.”

Crowley had driven off and Aziraphale had stood there for quite a long moment, just watching the road, clutching his satchel once again. The final minutes of basking in this happiness before reality crashed back in. 

Dinner three days later, even with Aziraphale’s resolution to never act on his feelings, was just as lovely as he’d imagined. 

***

Their friendship had gone back to normal, for them. The Arrangement was back on. Sometimes they’d meet up. Crowley grew his hair out a bit, and Aziraphale was pretty sure he had a heart attack when he found out. It was long-haired Crowley who’d first introduced him to idea that possibly he taken a fancy to this demon. He was quite disappointed when Crowley left it at “shaggy boyband”. Aziraphale kept his own hair the same, of course. 

They went out to dinner once or twice, after they’d concluded their work. Their work - gaming the system to avoid their real work. Dinner was nice, it always was. Aziraphale avoided all invitations of possibly getting drunk afterwards. He didn’t, couldn’t, trust himself. Crowley either didn’t notice or merely said nothing - either way Aziraphale was grateful.

In the years or months they didn’t see one another, Aziraphale kept an eye on Crowley. Officially to thwart his wiles. Unofficially to make sure he was safe. 

It was through this that he had heard of the caper. A caper at a church. A caper funded by Crowley. 

Aziraphale wasn’t an idiot. He was perfectly aware of what Crowley was capering. He almost wished he wasn’t. Crowley was going to risk his life for a substance that could kill him, really kill him, if even the slightest thing went wrong. 

He considered calling Crowley to talk him out of it, but that hadn’t worked last time and he didn’t want to cause another row. Instead he sat in the bookshop - closed - and thought. 

Three days after Aziraphalr first learned of Crowley’s caper, he pulled one off of his own. 

It was no good going to Heaven. They’d ask too many questions. He suspected that they already didn’t like him much, even though they’d offered him a medal that one time. He kept the medal in a junk drawer, and tried not to think about it. Anyways, you didn’t have to like someone to give them a medal. Heaven wasn’t an option. He was going to have to steal from a church. 

The church he picked was an old, mostly forgotten one. Few still came there to worship. Moss had begun to creep up its sides, and banks were circling the property, waiting to seize and demolish it. 

Aziraphale broke in with one small miracle. If Heaven asked, he was here to perform a miracle to “restore faith”. He’d brought some silver coins stamped with angelic wings for that very purpose. 

He’d also brought a thermos, a ladle, a long funnel, gloves and a towel. The thermos had the tightest lid he could find. The woman in the shop had looked at him oddly as he’d tested each one. He’d ignored her. 

The basin of holy water was easy to find, smack-dab in the center. Carefully, with gloves on, he’d ladled water into the funnel and into the thermos. Perhaps he was overcomplicating it, but if some water dribbled down the edge of the thermos, all - Crowley - could be lost. So he used his funnel and gloves and carefully, carefully poured. After all was done, he took his thermos, left the silver coins in the remaining holy water as a “miracle” and miracled his other supplies into a dumpster.

The next night, he looked for Crowley. He could have called - finally having gotten a phone - and asked Crowley to meet him, but his stomach churned at the thought. The holy thermos, safely in his pocket, was an extension of his greatest secret. Ringing the doorbell to Crowley’s flat just seemed wrong. In any cases, Crowley was easy to find, he drove a vintage car like a maniac and even without the car, was quite memorable. 

He found the car. The passenger door was unlocked. That seemed risky, but this was Crowley. Aziraphale got inside, then turned invisible as a precaution. 

Afterwards, safely back in the bookshop, he wondered if he’d done the right thing. Too late. Crowley’s voice, so soft and surprised kept echoing in his head. The look on his face. Aziraphale had refused the ride and practically fled. This… it could only end badly. No matter how he felt. No matter how Crowley felt. They were an angel and demon. 

Someday, he’d told Crowley, someday. A desperate part of him wished he could have given a better answer, but that was a hopeless dream. Life wasn’t like that. He’d done what he could. 

***

Crowley had been right. The bookshop was exactly as he’d left it, save some interesting additions. It was a relief. Privately, Aziraphale was profoundly grateful he’d never had to see his bookshop and books destroyed. It could be like a bad dream, forgotten. 

They’d had lunch, and then they’d both walked back to the bookstore. It was closer than Crowley’s flat and Arizaphale had wanted, needed, to see it. 

It was well. He and Crowley and the bookshop were safe. They were free. Free from Heaven and Hell and the expectations of their position. They weren’t an angel and a demon, not anymore.

… Oh. 

He looked over at Crowley, who’d sprawled on a couch. He’d once told Crowley that he went too fast for him. Now, Aziraphale was ready to catch up.

**Author's Note:**

> ... and then they kissed. I don't know how to write romance but It Happened.
> 
> thanks for reading this mess! first time i've actually like finished a fic so i figured i might as well upload it. even though its dubious, it was a lot of fun to write.
> 
> also sorry for typos


End file.
